Charles Ives and Henry Brant

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

American composer Henry Brant is famous for his avant-garde “spatial” music — works that require groups of musicians stationed at various points around a performance space. But hard-core film music buffs might also know Brant as a master orchestrator of other composers’ scores for Hollywood productions in the 1960s.

On today’s date in 1995, Brant conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, Canada, in the premiere of one of his orchestrations — in this case, a symphonic version of the Concord Piano Sonata by Charles Ives, first published in 1920. In the long preface to his Sonata, Ives wrote:

“The [Sonata] is an attempt to present [an] impression of the spirit of transcendentalism … associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts … impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts, and a scherzo supposed to reflect a lighter quality … found in the fantastic side of Hawthorne.”

Henry Brant had been profoundly influenced by Ives’ music long before he got to know the Concord Sonata, but when he did, Brant set to work orchestrating it.

“I sensed that here was a tremendous orchestral piece,” Brant wrote. “It seemed to me that the complete Sonata, in a symphonic orchestration, might become the ‘Great American Symphony’ that we had been seeking for years … What better way to honor Ives.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Charles Ives (1874-1954) arr. Henry Brant (1913-2008): A Concord Symphony; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; innova 414